AWIN First 2011-08-22

News

Qantas and American Airlines have won tentative approval from Australian regulators for a closer transpacific partnership.
In its draft decision, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) finds no problems with the joint business agreement proposed by the two carriers. The Oneworld alliance partners want to coordinate operations on routes between Australia/New Zealand and the U.S., and on supporting domestic networks. A wide range of activities are covered, including pricing and scheduling decisions....More

Austrian Airlines will not reach its target to achieve an operating profit this year, the airline’s Chairman Stefan Lauer said on Monday. Lauer is also a member of Lufthansa Group’s executive board and oversees the company’s airline affiliates.
Austrian has been undergoing a tough restructuring program, but factors like the high fuel prices and a collapse in demand in some of its key markets like the Middle East made the turnaround even more difficult....More

Raytheon officials are seeking government sponsorship for continued work on an SM-3 datalink designed to mate the ballistic missile interceptor with foreign ships.
The project is eyed by the company to dovetail with growing interest in NATO to build up its missile defenses after last year’s declaration that such a defense is a core alliance mission....More

Delta Air Lines’ drawdown of service is reducing capacity at its hub at Memphis International Airport by 15%, largely in dropping flights to small markets but including non-stop flights to San Diego and San Francisco airports.
Larry Cox, president and CEO of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, says Delta officials have assured him that the airline will continue to operate Memphis airport as a regional hub. Delta inherited the hub in its merger with Northwest Airlines, along with Minneapolis/St. Paul and Detroit Metro airports....More

Some Taiwanese defense officials are continuing to argue that no final decision has been made on whether the U.S. will sell the island nation Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds. But others in the government are starting to come out publicly and say what people in the U.S. defense industry have suspected all along: President Barack Obama will not sell the country new F-16s....More

India has added an indigenous stealth warship to its navy for use on the east side of the country, amid rising concerns about the Chinese naval presence in the region.
INS Satpura, a state-of-the-art, multirole combat frigate, sports advanced features designed for dodging enemy radars. The frigate is the second of the three-ship Project-17 Shivalik Class. The warship, along with its first vessel in the series, INS Shivalik, will be deployed in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean region....More

Higher sales taxes in India on air tickets are negatively affecting the country’s civil aviation industry, warn aviation experts.
“While taxes provide a tangible short-term revenue boost to the government coffers, increased taxes in the long term can be outweighed by the cost to the underlying economy,” an aviation finance expert Charles Tyler says....More

A U.S. District Court judge in Denver will not expedite the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ lawsuit challenging the legal legitimacy of a Frontier Airlines cost-cutting agreement with its pilots, rejecting the claims by Frontier and parent company Republic Airways that a failure to resolve the case by Sept. 12 could put critical financing for the imperiled low-cost carrier in jeopardy....More

The first in-space tests under NASA’s new advanced technology push will involve laser communications for high-data-rate links to deep-space probes, a space-qualified atomic clock to make the laser links even more efficient, and the largest solar sail yet flown....More

Management at Thai carrier Nok Air are buying a 25% stake in the airline, further strengthening their control over the business and making it harder for Thai Airways International to do likewise.
A spokesman for Nok says the airline’s CEO, Patee Sarasin, has formed Nok Air Management Co. (NAMC) along with four other senior Nok Air executives and each has an equal share in NAMC....More

Management at Thai carrier Nok Air are buying a 25% stake in the airline, further strengthening their control over the business and making it harder for Thai Airways International to do likewise.
A spokesman for Nok says the airline’s CEO, Patee Sarasin, has formed Nok Air Management Co. (NAMC) along with four other senior Nok Air executives and each has an equal share in NAMC....More

Russian Helicopters has begun operating the new Mil Mi-38 medium helicopter with Klimov TV7-117 turboshafts.
The twin-engine rotorcraft has been powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127s. The Russian engines were installed on the Mi-38 immediately before the Moscow air show, where the rotorcraft debuted. The model has been designated the Mi-382....More

Managers at NASA replanning the troubled James Webb Space Telescope have concluded it will cost $8.7 billion to finish the observatory in time for a launch in 2018 and operate it at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point for five years.
The agency says that by the end of fiscal 2011 it will have spent $3.5 billion so far on the telescope, which means another $5.2 billion must be found by the end of the five-year mission following launch in 2018....More

The New Orleans Aviation Board is undertaking an in-depth analysis of how it should build a world-class airport.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu charged the board to determine whether the city should build a new terminal on the north side of the airport property or to expand the current airport complex to adjacent area west of the terminal. “We know we have a long way to go to achieve the world-class airport that this city deserves,” the mayor wrote in a letter to the board....More

Electricity surged through Robonaut 2 for the first time on Aug. 22, signaling the prospects for a “first motion” in several weeks.
R2, a broad-shouldered experimental two-armed robot, was launched to the International Space Station aboard NASA’s STS-133 mission in February. Robonaut 2 was stowed in the U.S. Destiny lab, while NASA shuttle crews focused on completing the nearly 13-year-long assembly and outfitting of the orbital outpost....More

The U.K. Royal Air Force is due to receive the first of 14 new CH-47 Chinook helicopters for testing in 2013, with the goal of fielding the system in May 2014.
The U.K. has long said it wanted to increase its fleet of the Boeing heavy-lift rotorcraft, having announced plans for 12 new aircraft and two additional ones to replace helicopters lost during combat operations. The contract has a price tag £1 billion ($1.65 billion)....More

The aerospace industry will be asked shortly for ideas on how $510 million in government money should be spent over the next three years to build an aviation and marine biofuels supply chain in the U.S.
It also will be asked how much money it is willing to put into what the government intends to be a public/private partnership....More

The U.S. Navy wants to refit existing DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with hybrid-drive propulsion systems—as well as incorporate the technology in future Flight III versions of the ship—to help save on fuel costs, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says.
“We’re very interested in hybrid drive,” Mabus told reporters Aug. 22 during a teleconference on Navy energy initiatives. “We’re looking at retrofitting the ships we have and [putting it on] the new ships we’re constructing.”...More

While the U.S. Navy has spent more money by far on fixed-wing aircraft than any other single expense over the past decade, the service invested evenly in both its aircraft and ship accounts during that time, according to an exclusive analysis of contracting data by the Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN)....More

News

Qantas and American Airlines have won tentative approval from Australian regulators for a closer transpacific partnership.
In its draft decision, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) finds no problems with the joint business agreement proposed by the two carriers. The Oneworld alliance partners want to coordinate operations on routes between Australia/New Zealand and the U.S., and on supporting domestic networks. A wide range of activities are covered, including pricing and scheduling decisions....More

The U.S. Navy wants to refit existing DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with hybrid-drive propulsion systems—as well as incorporate the technology in future Flight III versions of the ship—to help save on fuel costs, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says.
“We’re very interested in hybrid drive,” Mabus told reporters Aug. 22 during a teleconference on Navy energy initiatives. “We’re looking at retrofitting the ships we have and [putting it on] the new ships we’re constructing.”...More

Austrian Airlines will not reach its target to achieve an operating profit this year, the airline’s Chairman Stefan Lauer said on Monday. Lauer is also a member of Lufthansa Group’s executive board and oversees the company’s airline affiliates.
Austrian has been undergoing a tough restructuring program, but factors like the high fuel prices and a collapse in demand in some of its key markets like the Middle East made the turnaround even more difficult....More

Some Taiwanese defense officials are continuing to argue that no final decision has been made on whether the U.S. will sell the island nation Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds. But others in the government are starting to come out publicly and say what people in the U.S. defense industry have suspected all along: President Barack Obama will not sell the country new F-16s....More

Management at Thai carrier Nok Air are buying a 25% stake in the airline, further strengthening their control over the business and making it harder for Thai Airways International to do likewise.
A spokesman for Nok says the airline’s CEO, Patee Sarasin, has formed Nok Air Management Co. (NAMC) along with four other senior Nok Air executives and each has an equal share in NAMC....More

Electricity surged through Robonaut 2 for the first time on Aug. 22, signaling the prospects for a “first motion” in several weeks.
R2, a broad-shouldered experimental two-armed robot, was launched to the International Space Station aboard NASA’s STS-133 mission in February. Robonaut 2 was stowed in the U.S. Destiny lab, while NASA shuttle crews focused on completing the nearly 13-year-long assembly and outfitting of the orbital outpost....More

Delta Air Lines’ drawdown of service is reducing capacity at its hub at Memphis International Airport by 15%, largely in dropping flights to small markets but including non-stop flights to San Diego and San Francisco airports.
Larry Cox, president and CEO of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, says Delta officials have assured him that the airline will continue to operate Memphis airport as a regional hub. Delta inherited the hub in its merger with Northwest Airlines, along with Minneapolis/St. Paul and Detroit Metro airports....More

Higher sales taxes in India on air tickets are negatively affecting the country’s civil aviation industry, warn aviation experts.
“While taxes provide a tangible short-term revenue boost to the government coffers, increased taxes in the long term can be outweighed by the cost to the underlying economy,” an aviation finance expert Charles Tyler says....More

The first in-space tests under NASA’s new advanced technology push will involve laser communications for high-data-rate links to deep-space probes, a space-qualified atomic clock to make the laser links even more efficient, and the largest solar sail yet flown....More

India has added an indigenous stealth warship to its navy for use on the east side of the country, amid rising concerns about the Chinese naval presence in the region.
INS Satpura, a state-of-the-art, multirole combat frigate, sports advanced features designed for dodging enemy radars. The frigate is the second of the three-ship Project-17 Shivalik Class. The warship, along with its first vessel in the series, INS Shivalik, will be deployed in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean region....More

The aerospace industry will be asked shortly for ideas on how $510 million in government money should be spent over the next three years to build an aviation and marine biofuels supply chain in the U.S.
It also will be asked how much money it is willing to put into what the government intends to be a public/private partnership....More

Managers at NASA replanning the troubled James Webb Space Telescope have concluded it will cost $8.7 billion to finish the observatory in time for a launch in 2018 and operate it at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point for five years.
The agency says that by the end of fiscal 2011 it will have spent $3.5 billion so far on the telescope, which means another $5.2 billion must be found by the end of the five-year mission following launch in 2018....More

The New Orleans Aviation Board is undertaking an in-depth analysis of how it should build a world-class airport.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu charged the board to determine whether the city should build a new terminal on the north side of the airport property or to expand the current airport complex to adjacent area west of the terminal. “We know we have a long way to go to achieve the world-class airport that this city deserves,” the mayor wrote in a letter to the board....More

A U.S. District Court judge in Denver will not expedite the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ lawsuit challenging the legal legitimacy of a Frontier Airlines cost-cutting agreement with its pilots, rejecting the claims by Frontier and parent company Republic Airways that a failure to resolve the case by Sept. 12 could put critical financing for the imperiled low-cost carrier in jeopardy....More

While the U.S. Navy has spent more money by far on fixed-wing aircraft than any other single expense over the past decade, the service invested evenly in both its aircraft and ship accounts during that time, according to an exclusive analysis of contracting data by the Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN)....More

Russian Helicopters has begun operating the new Mil Mi-38 medium helicopter with Klimov TV7-117 turboshafts.
The twin-engine rotorcraft has been powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127s. The Russian engines were installed on the Mi-38 immediately before the Moscow air show, where the rotorcraft debuted. The model has been designated the Mi-382....More

Management at Thai carrier Nok Air are buying a 25% stake in the airline, further strengthening their control over the business and making it harder for Thai Airways International to do likewise.
A spokesman for Nok says the airline’s CEO, Patee Sarasin, has formed Nok Air Management Co. (NAMC) along with four other senior Nok Air executives and each has an equal share in NAMC....More

The U.K. Royal Air Force is due to receive the first of 14 new CH-47 Chinook helicopters for testing in 2013, with the goal of fielding the system in May 2014.
The U.K. has long said it wanted to increase its fleet of the Boeing heavy-lift rotorcraft, having announced plans for 12 new aircraft and two additional ones to replace helicopters lost during combat operations. The contract has a price tag £1 billion ($1.65 billion)....More

Raytheon officials are seeking government sponsorship for continued work on an SM-3 datalink designed to mate the ballistic missile interceptor with foreign ships.
The project is eyed by the company to dovetail with growing interest in NATO to build up its missile defenses after last year’s declaration that such a defense is a core alliance mission....More